Poor Petro, he was such a fool about people--such a dear, nice, but
sometimes inconvenient fool! Just mother's disposition over again,
with a touch of father's cleverness splashed in here and there where
you'd least expect it--but _never_ in the place where it would be most
useful.
As Ena reflected thus, she was vaguely pleased with herself after the
fashion of an earnest student who suddenly finds himself actually
thinking in French. Before she Went to Mme. Yarde's Finishing School
for Young Ladies, she had been so accustomed to saying pa and ma that
it had been very difficult to overcome the habit. Even now, once in a
while, she--but, thank heaven, not _once_ since meeting Lord Raygan;
she was sure of that. He had said, "You talk quite like our girls."
And all the rest of the day she had been happy; for sometimes, in a
good-natured sort of way, he made fun of what he absurdly called "the
American accent."
Ena shut her eyes and composed herself to lie down without ruffling
her hair. But she could not sleep. She made pictures of Lord Raygan
and his mother and Lady Eileen visiting at their house on Long Island.
Would they think it more "swell" of the Rollses to be living in the
country than in New York? She hoped so, and almost believed they
would, for she understood from novels and what she had learned in
London, that the "smart people" only "ran into town for the theatre
and that sort of thing" in winter.
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